The Team

Our Trustees

The Trustees of The Royal Foundation each undertake a balance of responsibilities divided between strategic direction, governance, oversight and fundraising. The Trustees meet at least quarterly on a formal basis and they are accountable in law for the work of the Foundation.

The Rt Hon Lord Hague of Richmond, William Hague

Chairman

The Rt Hon Lord Hague of Richmond, William Hague

The Rt Hon Lord Hague of Richmond, William Hague, served for 26 years in the British House of Commons until he stood down in 2015. In that time, he served in many senior roles, including Leader of the House of Commons, but is best known as the Leader of the Conservative party, 1997-2001, and First Secretary of State and Foreign Secretary, 2010-2014. He now pursues a wide range of business and charitable activities. He is also a well-known writer, as a weekly columnist of the Times and a best-selling author of historical biographies.

Alice Webb

Alice Webb is Chief Executive Officer of Universal Music Group’s Mercury Studios. Prior to this Alice spent 15 years at the BBC in a number of roles. As Chief Operating Officer and then Director of BBC North she was a key figure in relocating key BBC departments and over 35,000 hours of output a year to MediaCityUK in Salford.

Latterly, Alice was Director of BBC Children’s & Education - leading the BBC’s output and activity for Under 16’s – including CBeebies, CBBC and BBC Bitesize. More recently, Alice led the launch of the BBC’s hugely successful Bitesize Daily which supported millions of children across the country during the coronavirus pandemic.

Claire Wills

Claire Wills is a senior partner at global law firm Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, and served as the firm’s London Managing Partner. She joined Freshfields in 1992, becoming a partner in May 2001. Claire is on the board of Surrey County Cricket Club and was formerly a Governor of Rugby School and also Chair of the Arnold Foundation Board, established by Rugby School in 2003.

Ian Patrick

Ian Patrick is the Private Secretary to HRH The Prince of Wales. Prior to this he was a Partner at the geo-political risk advisory company Macro Advisory Partners, and a British diplomat.

Patrick began his career as an advisor to Paddy Ashdown in the House of Commons, following Lord Ashdown to Bosnia where he worked in the international peace keeping mission. Patrick then joined the British Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, before joining Macro Advisory Partners.

Lady Pinsent

Demetra Pinsent is the CEO of British beauty brand Charlotte Tilbury, a Non-Executive Director of Belmond Ltd and a Trustee of The Royal Foundation. Prior to this, she was a Partner at McKinsey & Company where she co-led the European Luxury Goods Practice and advised leading global retailers and consumer businesses. She has also served as an Advisory Board Member for Walpole, the British luxury goods association and Aston Martin.

Dame Pippa Harris

Pippa Harris is an Oscar-nominated, BAFTA award-winning, film and television producer, who established Neal Street Productions in 2003 alongside Sam Mendes and Caro Newling.

The company’s work includes the hugely successful BBC series Call the Midwife which Pippa has executive produced for over a decade, as well as the multi-award winning First World War movie, 1917, which Pippa produced. Neal Street’s recent stage productions include the Tony award-winning The Lehman Trilogy, and the acclaimed productions of The Motive and The Cue, and Hamnet. Pippa also produced the movies Away We Go, Starter for Ten, and Things We Lost in the Fire, and executive produced the Oscar-nominated Revolutionary Road, and the hit TV series Britannia and Penny Dreadful for Showtime/Sky. Most recently Pippa produced the BAFTA-nominated film Empire of Light starring Olivia Colman and Micheal Ward, written and directed by Sam Mendes.

Following her tenure as Chair of BAFTA, Pippa is now their Vice President of Television, and is director of albert, the BAFTA led sustainability consortium. Pippa is also Chair of Charleston, a museum and gallery which was home of the Bloomsbury group. She is an Ambassador for Women for Women International and a Patron of the neonatal charity Best Beginnings. Before setting up Neal Street Productions, Pippa was the Head of Drama Commissioning for the BBC. In 2015 she was made a Dame in the Dissolution Honours.

Sir Dave Lewis

After 28 years at Unilever, Dave spent nearly 7 years as Group CEO of Tesco PLC. Dave chairs Haleon PLC, sits as a non-exec director for PepsiCo and chairs a private renewable energy business Xlinks.

He is also the Chair of the World Wildlife Fund in the UK, and acts as an operating advisor to CD&R private investment firm. Married to Helena with two daughters.

Sir Ron Kalifa

OBE

Sir Ron Kalifa

Ron Kalifa is Chairman of Network International. He is a Non-Executive Director on the Court of Directors to the Bank of England, the England & Wales Cricket Board and a member of the Council of Imperial College, London. Additionally, Ron is Vice Chair of Financial Infrastructure at Brookfield Asset Management and a Director of InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG). Previously, Ron led Worldpay for over 10 years as CEO including its divestment into private equity ownership in 2010. He served as Vice Chairman, thereafter, remaining as an Executive director until February 2020. Ron authored an independent Fintech Strategic Review for the UK at the request of HM Government. The Report was published in February 2021.

Simon Patterson

Vice Chairman

Simon Patterson

Simon Patterson joined Silver Lake in 2005 and is a Managing Director and co-head of the firm’s activities in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. He is currently a board member of IVC Evidensia, New Zealand Rugby Commercial, RAC, and ZPG, and previously served on the boards of Dell, Skype, Cegid, Intelsat, FlixBus, MultiPlan, and Gerson Lehrman Group. Prior to joining Silver Lake, he was a member of the founding management team of the logistics software company GF-X (acquired by Descartes) and worked in various management roles at the Financial Times. He is a member of Mark Carney’s Panel of Senior Advisors at Chatham House, and previously served as a Trustee of the Natural History Museum and a Non-Executive Director of Tesco plc. Simon holds an M.A. from King’s College, Cambridge University and an M.B.A. from the Stanford University Graduate School of Business, where he was an Arjay Miller Scholar and received the Alexander Robichek Award for Finance.

Zeinab Badawi

Zeinab Badawi was born in Sudan – her family moved to London when she was two years old. She studied Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Oxford University and for an MA in history (awarded with a distinction) at SOAS, London University. Zeinab has worked extensively in the British media for four decades and is now best known for her work in the BBC’s international division at BBC World News TV and BBC World Service Radio on programmes such as 'Hard Talk', and 'Global Questions’ as well as a major 20-part tv series on the history of Africa which she produced and presented through her own production company for BBC World News. She also produces and presents films on opera. Zeinab is President of SOAS London University, a member of the advisory board of the think tank Afro-Barometer, and of MINDS: the Mandela Institute for Development Studies; a trustee of Historic Royal Palaces, BBC Media Action (the charitable arm of the BBC), the Royal Opera House, the Hampstead Theatre in London and the Mo Ibrahim Foundation. She is also a council member of the Arts Humanities and Research Council of UKRI; Zeinab was Chair of the Royal African Society (Patron: HRH the Duke of Cambridge); she has served on the board of the British Council, the National Portrait Gallery, the Institute of Historical Research, the Overseas Development Institute, and has been Chair of Article 19. Zeinab has received many awards including honorary doctorates from SOAS, the University of the Arts London, and York University and received the President’s Medal of the British Academy for her services to broadcasting and education and the United Nations Association-UK Sir Brian Urquhart award for distinguished service to the UN. She is also an honorary fellow of St Hilda’s, College Oxford University. Zeinab has four children.